Dear Fellow Members:
As winter feels increasingly like spring I thought it would be appropriate to summarize for you some of the work that we together as a congregation have been busy accomplishing over the past few months. It speaks to the renewed spirit of unity and purpose that we have been praying for and seeking together.
Late this past fall, the Youth and Family Task Team (Liz Mulholland, Chair, Steve Whelan, Susan Warner, Larry Atkins and Anne Stoops) wrapped up their work and made important recommendations concerning the importance of greater integration of our youth and family programs and the hiring of a new minister of faith formation. Subsequently, a search committee (Hank Wolf and Scott Knowles, chairs, Alison Miller, Dolly McIlvaine, Carol Harris, Sherry Roach and Cathy Imboden) were appointed and commissioned. They are about ready to post job advertisements and hope to have a candidate for the congregation’s approval in the near future. In addition, the newly created Faithworks program under the leadership of Sue Panella has been successful in integrating our several disassociated youth programs which has resulted in greater coordination of effort and significantly greater support in our desire to encourage intergenerational participation in our worship life Sunday mornings.
Our Deaconite Task Team (Ruth Bortzfield, chair, Sandy Whelan, Tom Trevenen, Ed Jelinek and Karen Myers Hackem) is soon to wrap up its work and will be suggesting how a new Board of Deacons will help partner with our ministers to improve the spiritual development and care of our members. The Task Team’s recommendations will help us integrate and focus the spiritual life and focus of our congregation.
Together with the results of the Youth and Family Task Team’s efforts and that of the ONA Task Team (John Szymanski, Chair, Jan Dik, Kim Philpot, Don Zaik and Sue DiTucci), anticipated changes will be welcomed for some of our institutional decision-making structures. Upon receipt of the Deaconite Task Team report, Council will be appointing a By-Law and Organizational Review Task Team to review our By-laws and bring them into sync with the reality of these new and exciting directions God has led us together to make. I would expect that review to take a good part of the next year, but we will have warrant articles to vote on at Annual Meeting in May asking for your approval of the Task Team’s efforts.
On or about March 25th, we will have a special business meeting in the Meeting House after worship to vote on whether or not we as a congregation will decide to be registered as an Open and Affirming congregation of the United Church of Christ. Under John Szymanski’s calm and steady leadership the ONA Task Team has hosted a successful series of excellent congregation-wide discussions. The panel presentation of our members Tony Annis, Martha Morrison and Susan Warner was a highlight that showed that when people of good will get together, agreement on all points is less important than the process by which views are expressed and decisions reached. Relationships are very important to us. Throughout this process we have been reminded that what is important is remembering the dignity of all of our members. It is my hope that whatever your point of view on this subject that we will have an open and respectful vote on March 25th and that all members will be comfortable expressing their opinions and being counted and that we will remain a unified congregation afterwards, whatever the result.
Joe Gibbons, Chair of our Aspire committee reports that the committee intends to accomplish repairs to the chancel and organ console this summer within the budget and funds on hand and that there will be further notices soon as to a two week period when we may need to worship in the Emerson Center. There will be more to come on this later.
On February 21st, at its regular monthly meeting, Council began discussions concerning the appointment of a Settled Minister Search Committee and I expect a full slate of members will be voted by the Council at our next meeting. A subcommittee of Council continues to look for a youth member to serve as a voting member. The search committee will be commissioned at a worship service in the near future and it will be getting to work soon rewriting our church profile so that it reflects who we are as a church now as opposed to who we were more than 5 years ago when last reviewed
Our website committee (Mike Ierardi, chair, Werner Greisshammer, Martha Morrison and Irina Guenzel-Guerra under Mike Ierardi’s leadership has also approved and we have signed a new contract for the overhaul of our website and we hope to have a new, outreach based, community oriented site complete before annual meeting.
We have accomplished much over the last year and a half but there is still much to complete before we welcome a new Senior Minister sometime in the next year. This “minute” would not be complete without a huge THANK YOU to our Interim Minister David Fountain who has pushed and prodded us to honestly look at where we have been, where we are going and who we are, collectively, as a community of faith. Very little of what we are in process of accomplishing would have happened without his guidance and insight. As we enter the season of our annual stewardship appeal, let us give thanks for all of our blessings by giving of our time, treasure and love.
Steve Clark, Moderator